Residential and commercial building products are often made of an engineered composite material, including cellulosic composite materials such as medium to high density fiberboard and particleboard, as well as other “synthetic” materials such as laminates, veneers, and reinforced polyester sheet molding compounds (SMC), to name a few. Such products find various applications, including interior uses, such as for interior passageway doors and door skins, drywall, countertops, kitchen cabinets, wainscoting, flooring, wall panels, ceiling tiles, interior trim components, and exterior uses, such as for entry doors, decking, siding, trim, fencing, and window frames.
While synthetic materials may provide substantial cost savings over natural materials such as wood, stone, and ceramic, synthetic materials lack the attractive appearance and the authenticity of natural materials. For this reason, extensive efforts have been made to modify the surface appearance of synthetic materials such as engineered composite materials to simulate the beauty and intricacy of natural materials. Conventional printing technologies such as ink-jet printing apply ink graphics to the surface of synthetic materials to mimic the general patterns of a naturally occurring material. Synthetic materials with ink-jet graphics alone, however, may not have sufficient aesthetic appeal to more discriminate consumers.
Ink-jet printed surfaces lack a textural feel inherent in many natural materials, and vital to their appearance. Additionally, cylinder printing and foil overlay techniques suffer from various problems when they are utilized on non-uniform surfaces. Non-uniform article surfaces may have particular features, such as channels or recesses, which lie below a principal planar surface of the article. Cylinder printing techniques may fail to contact such surface features below the principal planar surface. Foil overlays, on the other hand, may completely hide or conceal these features. Other surface decorative processes such as sandblasting and veneering have their drawbacks as well, such as high cost.